Blizzard Albany (formerly Vicarious Visions, Inc.) is an American

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York Cit ...

. The studio was acquired by Activision in January 2005. After releasing its last game as part of that company, ''

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 Tony may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer * Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leagu ...

'', Vicarious Visions became part of Activision's sister company Blizzard Entertainment in January 2021 and was merged into it in April 2022, thereby being renamed Blizzard Albany.

History

The studio was founded by brothers Karthik and Guha Bala in 1991 while they were in high school. In the late 1990s, Vicarious Visions appointed Michael Marvin, an Albany-based investor and entrepreneur, and founder and former CEO of

MapInfo Corporation MapInfo Corporation, initially incorporated as Navigational Technologies Incorporated, was a company that developed location intelligence software. It was headquartered in North Greenbush, New York. Its products included a desktop mapping ap ...

; and Charles S. Jones, investor, who sat on the boards of various software and industrial companies including Geac and PSDI, to its board of directors. Under their leadership, a sale of the company was negotiated to Activision, earning the original investors over 20x their initial investment. In January 2005, Vicarious Visions was acquired by publisher Activision. In June 2007, Activision closed the Vicarious Visions' office in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is t ...

. On April 5, 2016, the Bala brothers announced that they had left the company. The brothers then founded

Velan Studios Velan Studios is an American video game developer based in Troy, New York. Founded in 2016 by Guha Bala and Karthik Bala, the studio is most known for developing '' Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit'' (2020) and ''Knockout City'' (2021). History Ve ...

in November 2016. On January 22, 2021, Vicarious Visions was moved by Activision Blizzard from a subsidiary of Activision to a subsidiary of Blizzard Entertainment. Going forward, the more than 200 employees of Vicarious Visions will be employees of Blizzard. Vicarious had been working with Blizzard for about two years prior to this announcement, and specifically on the planned

remaster Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

of '' Diablo II'', '' Diablo II: Resurrected'', and Blizzard felt the move would be best as to have Vicarious' group provide continued support not only on the remaster but also on other ''Diablo'' properties including ''

Diablo IV ''Diablo IV'' is an upcoming action role-playing game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, and is the fourth main installment in the '' Diablo'' series. The game was announced on November 1, 2019 at BlizzCon 2019, and is schedule ...

''. Vicarious Visions

studio head Studio manager, studio director, or studio head is a job title in various media-related professions, including design, advertising, and broadcasting. Design and advertising A design or advertising studio manager's responsibilities will typically ...

Jen Oneal moved to Blizzard's management and was succeeded by Simon Ebejer, previously the studio's

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if ...

. On October 27, 2021, Blizzard informed Vicarious Visions employees that the studio would change its name. The studio was fully merged into Blizzard on April 12, 2022, and was renamed Blizzard Albany, otherwise retaining its offices. Blizzard Albany's QA team, about 20 members in size, announced a unionization drive in July 2022 as GWA Albany. It follows

Raven Software Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Wisconsin and founded in 1990. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them. After the acquisition, many of the stu ...

, another Activision Blizzard subsidiary, whose QA team voted to unionize earlier in the year.

Game history

'' Terminus'', an online multiplayer space trading and combat simulation game, won two Independent Games Festival Awards in 1999. They became known as a leading developer of handheld games breaking ground by the '' Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'' series, developing Game Boy Advance and

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in t ...

titles in the franchise's main series as well as one spin off. They developed the first three ''Crash Bandicoot'' GBA games. Vicarious Visions developed ''

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in the Si ...

'', '' Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro'', '' Ultimate Spider-Man'', '' Crash Nitro Kart'', '' Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast'', '' Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy'', and '' Doom 3'' for the Xbox. Vicarious Visions developed for the ''Guitar Hero'' series on the Nintendo DS and

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...

platforms. For '' Guitar Hero: On Tour'', Vicarious Visions created the "Guitar Grip" peripheral for the Nintendo DS, which emulates the guitar controller for the portable system. It was revealed on June 10, 2011, that Vicarious Visions was working on the 3DS version of '' Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure'', and would go on to have an important role in developing the Skylanders game series, creating the games '' Skylanders: Swap Force'' and '' Skylanders: SuperChargers''. On December 8, 2016, Vicarious Visions announced that they were partnering with Bungie to work on the '' Destiny'' franchise.

Game engine

Vicarious Visions Alchemy is the company's game engine. It was released in 2002. It was originally called Intrinsic Alchemy and developed by Intrinsic Graphics before being renamed after Vicarious Visions acquired Intrinsic Graphics in 2003.

Games developed

Cancelled games

Notes

References

External links

* {{Tony Hawk games 1991 establishments in New York (state) 2005 mergers and acquisitions 2021 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 1991 Blizzard Entertainment Colonie, New York Companies based in Albany County, New York Former Activision subsidiaries Video game companies established in 1991 Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies